Internet Governance

In Congressional Hearing, Stakeholders Highlight ICANN’s Failures and Need for Reform

Can we trust ICANN to conduct itself in a predictable, open, transparent, and accountable manner if it takes over governance of the Internet's domain name system from the U.S. government? That was the main question up for discussion Wednesday in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, as lawmakers heard feedback from a diverse group of stakeholders about the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) plan to relinquish its historical oversight of key technical Internet functions.  more

Celebrating the ITU’s Anniversary with “Abandonment”

The ITU is attempting to puff up some vestige of a value proposition this year by celebrating what its PR material purports to be the 150th anniversary. In reality, it has actually only existed as the ITU since 1934, and the pieces prior to that point stretch back 165 years to 1850. It was at that point that nations operating electric telegraph systems met at the first international meeting in Dresden to cobble together all the basic intergovernmental provisions that still exist today... more

An Open Internet Is Critical for UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, a significant focus of the United Nations will center on the future of global development, including negotiating a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at guiding policy in achieving dignity, well-being, and equality for all the world's people -- especially the poor and underserved. The currently proposed SDGs consist of an ambitious set of 17 goals and 169 specific targets. more

Asking a Better Question to Uncloak the Online Copyright Debate

The proverbial Pandora's box that is opened whenever the topic of online copyright infringement is raised throws into sharp relief a host of challenges that have confounded policy makers, internet service providers and consumers for many years. Chief amongst them is how to strike an appropriate balance between protecting the rights of content owners while continuing to promote the interests of the public and preserving the benefits of the internet, given its unprecedented ability to facilitate the rapid dissemination of copyrighted content. more

Active and Passive Internet of Things

"The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it." -Mark Weiser ...The Internet of Things is a step in this very direction. And like all things new and mysterious, it has its fair share of utopian and dystopian soothsayers; with an almost certain probability that neither of their deterministic predictions will completely come to fruition in the future. more

ICANN Asks U.S. Federal Trade Commission Whether .SUCK is Violating Any Laws

Allen Grogan, ICANN's Chief Contract Compliance Officer, has written a blog post today concerning a formal letter it has received asking the agency to halt the rollout of .SUCKS, a new gTLD operated by Vox Populi Registry Inc. As it stands, a ruling against Vox Populi by ICANN could result in federal prosecution or other legal action, according to ICANN officials. more

Freedom of Expression Chilled by ICANN’s Addition of Speech Restrictions in DNS

Freedom of expression on the Internet is at risk from ICANN's recent decision to prohibit anyone but one specific type of doctor from using the word within the .doctor new gTLD space. Last month, ICANN's New GTLD Program Committee decided that only "medical practitioners" would be allowed to register a domain in the .doctor name space. ICANN's decision to exclude numerous lawful users of the word, including a broad range of individuals who are in fact doctors, comes at a time when the world is watching ICANN to see if it can adequately protect Internet users' rights in the absence of US Government supervision. more

The .DOCTOR Quarantine

ICANN should reconsider its decision to quarantine .DOCTOR, given that it's not even sick. In an utterly surprising move, ICANN staff and the Board's New gTLD Program Committee ("NGPC") recently informed the applicants for .DOCTOR that it has singled out the gTLD as a test case for controlling content and limiting speech on the Internet. In the epitome of top-down policy making, ICANN issued an edict that it will implement nearly year-old advice from the Government Advisory Committee ("GAC") differently from all other similarly situated gTLDs and in contravention of subsequent GAC advice. more

Estimating Trademark Claims Notice Suppression of Non-Infringing New gTLD Registrations

On February 2nd ICANN staff announced the release of a Draft Report: Rights Protection Mechanisms Review that is open for public comment until May 1st. This Draft Report is preliminary to an Issues Report requested by the GNSO Council that is due to be delivered by September 30th, and that may set the stage for a Policy Development Process (PDP) on Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) that could commence in 2016. Such a PDP could consider comprehensive reform of these RPMs as well as of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). more

Hearing on “Preserving the Multistakeholder Model of Internet Governance”

Kevin Murphy reporting in DomainIncite: "The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will meet this Wednesday at 1000 local time to grill Chehade and others on the plan to remove the US government from the current triumvirate responsible for managing changes to the DNS root zone under the IANA arrangements..." more

FCC Expected to Propose Regulation of Internet as Utility

Sources are reporting that Tom Wheeler, the Federal Communications Commission chairman, is widely expected this week to propose regulating Internet service similar to a public utility -- a move certain to unleash another round of intense debate and lobbying about how to ensure so-called net neutrality, or an open Internet. more

Bringing Multistakholderism Home, .US and the Stakeholder Council

2014 will be remembered as the year of the "multistakeholder model" on the Internet. NTIA demonstrated its commitment to bottom-up, multistakeholder Internet governance by committing to complete the transfer of responsibility for various technical functions -- known as the IANA Functions -- to the multistakeholder community. NTIA called on ICANN to convene the community to develop a transition plan to accomplish this goal. more

IANA Transition Planning Proceeding in Fine Internet Style

Hundreds of individuals from across the Internet community have spent countless hours over the last several months crafting plans for the transition of the stewardship of the IANA functions from NTIA to the global multistakeholder community. The fruits of that labor have become highly evident within the past weeks, as two out of three components of the transition plan obtained the consensus of their communities while the third continued its intensive progress. more

Where We’re Going: Leviathan or Golem?

The Internet never ceases to fascinate. I am referring not to its content, but to its governance. The IANA transition is the latest example in a world of interesting possibilities. At the core, we find ICANN, and that is why we need a Human Rights Advisory Committee. Any future model, with or without the NTIA, needs to seriously consider this option. But I prefer the hard truth over my own ideals. Maybe this idea will be dismissed, simply because human rights are discussed as some kind of inconvenience. more

NETmundial Initiative Lacks Backing, and ICANN Should Not Lead

A fledgling attempt to create a new global Internet governance clearinghouse has run into trouble as leading business and civil organizations said they are not yet prepared to participate in the NETmundial Initiative (NMI) championed by ICANN President Fadi Chehade. In highlighting that there remain several unanswered questions, the Internet Society (ISOC), Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and International Chamber of Commerce (ICC-BASIS) raised serious concerns... more